Big Changes Needed at Hawaii’s Department of Education-Message from Board of Education Candidate

Today I will be modeling for the people of Hawaii the
lesson of the Honu which is, “You don’t get anywhere
unless you stick your neck out.”

My name is Nancy Stone and I am an at-large candidate
for the Board of Education.

I have a Masters Degree in teaching and I am currently
working on my Doctorate in Curriculum and Social
Inquiry.

I am a dually licensed Department of Education teacher
and I have taught in Central, Leeward and Windward
Districts on Oahu.

My husband and my children were educated in Hawaii’s
public schools and I guarantee you that I understand
first hand the seriousness of the problems we are
facing today.

I have personally endured the frustrations as a parent
attempting to get services for my child. I have watched as administrators deny benefits and
falsify documents.

Complaints about these violations fall on deaf ears
and result in retaliations. I have taught without books, without supplies, without power and without administrative support.

I have battled the Department of Education in the
Federal Courts against the Attorney General’s Office
which is obligated to defend their illegal actions
because the DOE is a state agency.

I have been blacklisted like so many other highly
qualified educators who pose a threat to the Hui that
runs Hawaii’s schools and I have proven
discrimination.

Hawaii has many fine teachers who are willing to stick
it out through the battle that is before them. Teachers are out-numbered by the bureaucrats in the Department of Education by a ratio of 3 to 1.

This top heavy managerial structure is designed NOT to
educate Hawaii’s children, but rather to keep a
racially elite few in positions of power and support
nepotistic hiring to ensure that these plantation
foremen are protected while they funnel taxpayer
dollars out of the classrooms and into their pockets.

They use their positions to further their own gain
while creating chaos for educators who find little
time left to teach.

This type of education system is abusive.

Back when public education in Hawaii began following
the MASTER SERVANT ACT of 1840, it was designed to
give the public just enough of an education to
maintain the children in their respective servant
status. The single central state run school system of 1840
still exists today.

Hawaii is the only state with such power over the
minds and futures of its children and as a result
its design is to fail them.

Public education, like public funds, belong to the
people.

My first act for the Board of Education will be to
call for the United States Department of Justice to
launch a full RICO investigation of the hiring and
spending practices of the Department of Education.
My next act as a board member will be to decentralize
Hawaii’s education system and establish district
boards that will be run by parents and teachers who
can work together in fixing our neighborhood schools.

I will propose that rather than have the grossly over-
bloated state bureaucracy squander taxpayers money on
categorical funding not required by the Federal
Government, that the cash be lumped summed directly to
district boards to ensure that it gets to the
classrooms.

Act 51 requires that 70 percent of the DOE operating budget
goes directly to the schools, yet the current Board of Education has
allowed the Department of Education to allocate less
than half of that. What that means is based on current funding, on
average, each school would receive an additional
$2,000,000.00 per year. $2,000,000.00 can hire a lot more teachers. $2,000,000.00 can repair our broken down facilities.
$2,000,000.00 can build gymnasiums, art studios,
technology labs, and band rooms.
$2,000,000.00 can put air conditioning in the
classrooms and not just administrative offices.

It is time to hold incompetent and unqualified
bureaucrats accountable.

Pat Hamamoto, with her mere bachelor’s degree would
not have the credentials anywhere else in this
country to even work as a principal, so why is she the
superintendant of schools, given carte blanche
by the Board of Education to continue leading Hawaii’s
children into failure?

The time has come to end the institutionalized discrimination that infects our schools and children.

The time has come to end the MASTER SERVANT SYSTEM of
1840 and stop singing praises to the plantation blues.
Now is time to bring Aloha and Lokahi back to the
children of Hawaii.

Hawaii Reporter is an award-winning, independent Hawaii-based news and opinion journal founded in 2001 and launched in February 2002. The journal's staff have won a number of top awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, including the top investigative news reporting awards, business reporting awards, government reporting awards, and online news reporting awards.